by Peter James
‘One thing that may surprise you during the course of this trial is that not all evidence will come from live witnesses. That makes for good television, but it is not how things work in reality. There are Admissions, facts which are not disputed. To keep this trial focused on the relevant issues, these have been agreed by the prosecution and defence.’
Meg was unsure what he meant by this. But there was no opportunity at this moment to question the statement.
‘There are the interviews with the defendant, who when questioned went no comment which he was entitled to do. You will be hearing from the police officers involved in the investigation and, finally, the financial experts, who will unpick the trail of ownership of the fake Ferrari, behind Tab X, to companies based in Panama, the Seychelles, the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein, and finally back to the man before you in the dock today. Terence Gready.
‘You will also hear detailed evidence about items that were recovered from the defendant’s home address including a key to a safety deposit box with the company Safe Box Co. These items and documents provide extensive details to support the evidence against this defendant. The police, during these searches, also recovered a large quantity of cash.’
Meg, although listening intently, was thinking about her fellow jurors. If she was going to have to manipulate them, would she have more sway as just a straightforward juror or by being elected the foreperson? Before the start of the proceedings this morning, they had agreed between them that during the lunch break they would go out and get sandwiches, then return to discuss and decide on who it should be.
She would be up against Roberts. The retired cop had made it plain he felt he was best suited to the role. Hugo Pink also clearly believed he should do it, as did Harold Trout, the retired actuary who had turned up today in a bow tie.
Yesterday evening she was checking her jury list. She couldn’t remember most of their names, but she was able to visualize their faces. What a microcosm of Little England this bunch was, she thought.
Meg had always been a good salesperson and she knew one of her strengths was in being persuasive, something she had always relished in her senior account manager role at Kempsons. She could, when she wanted, be extremely forceful – something Nick had noted when he was her line manager, long before they had started dating. Over the coming days she was going to have to use that ability to maximum effect.
She would start this lunchtime, getting them to agree, come hell or high water, to giving her the foreperson role.
47
Monday 13 May
They’ve elected me foreperson, but that’s all I’m allowed to tell you – actually I don’t think I’m even supposed to tell anyone that. But I guess in deepest Ecuador you can probably keep a secret :-) Sending this from the train. Love you and miss you. Mum XX
Meg sat in her seat in the packed carriage and read through the WhatsApp message as the train rolled past the remains of the former Lewes Racecourse, then sent it. She’d realized the train from Hove station, a twenty-minute walk or five-minute drive from her home, was a lot easier than driving to Lewes – and she knew it would please Laura to know she was doing something more environmentally friendly than driving. Silly, she thought, that she should be doing something to seek her daughter’s approval, but it was another small way of creating a bond with her over this vast distance separating them.
God, she so wished she could get a message to her to get the hell out of that damned country and on a plane back home, but she knew that wouldn’t necessarily make her any safer from these evil people. She did a mental calculation. Ecuador was five hours behind the UK, so it would be midday for Laura. She wondered where she and Cassie were right now.
A reply came back just a couple of minutes later. With it was a photograph of a roadside cafe with what looked like small animals cooking on a rotary grill outside.
Wow, does that mean you get to wear a wig when you deliver the verdict? Or is that just the judge???!!! Respect, Mum! See this pic?? Am totally grossed out – did you know guinea pig is the local delicacy? Yech. How cruel. Good for you taking the train – my mum saving the planet! I’m so proud of you, luv uuuuuu XXXXX
Meg smiled, her eyes moist. There was so much to be afraid of in Laura’s big adventure, quite apart from the bastards who were threatening her. The standards of driving in South America; the crime in a place where life was cheap. Two young girls travelling alone. Such damned easy targets.
She tried to put those worries from her mind and thought back to lunchtime today. To her surprise it had been Hugo, the one she’d thought would be the biggest problem, who had turned into her ally. He’d done it in a crass, patronizing way, which had included patting her thigh, suggestively, but she didn’t care.
‘Women have better intuition than us men, this lady wants the role and, in the interests of demonstrating gender equality on this jury, I vote we seriously consider Mrs Magellan as our foreperson,’ he’d said. Then he’d gone on to really annoy her with his comment, ‘At home, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is almost always right.’
In different circumstances she might have brained him with the closest weapon. But at lunchtime today she could have kissed him. Except he was gross, sweaty and a lech. It didn’t matter, she had what she wanted. And ‘Bat Out of Hell’ was blasting out of the radio into her headphones, lifting her mood fleetingly as the train rolled into Brighton station.
At 4.30 p.m. they’d been released for the day and were required back for a 10 a.m. resumption tomorrow.
A quarter of an hour later, Meg left Hove station in bright, warm, late-afternoon sunshine and walked down towards her house. She passed a row of large, terraced Victorian houses. In one front garden she passed, a couple were sitting on a bench in shorts with a bottle of wine in a bucket on the table in front of them, soaking up the rays. A little further down the street she smelled smoke from a barbecue. Normality. Everyone seemed to be having a pleasant afternoon, going into a pleasant evening. Just doing normal stuff.
Everyone except herself. She walked with fear curling in her stomach, enveloped in a darkness blacker than her shadow that glided beside her.
The forecast was good for the next few days, getting increasingly warm, maybe an early summer heatwave. Usually, she’d have made plans. Maybe changed into her swimming cozzie and taken a book down to the beach. Or called Ali and suggested meeting at their favourite seafront bar for a cocktail. But she just wanted to be home, indoors with her thoughts, all the doors bolted.
Thank goodness the house would be more secure now. Last night she’d had the locks changed by an emergency locksmith who’d charged her an outrageous amount. But she didn’t care. At least that evil bastard who had called her on Saturday evening wouldn’t find it quite so easy to invade her home now.
She opened the front door and was greeted by Daphne, who looked at her like she would have called the RSPCA if she knew how to dial a phone. On the floor, among a couple of envelopes that looked like bills, was a brown Amazon package.
Closing the door, she knelt and stroked the cat. ‘Hey, beautiful! What’s your problem?’ Then she prised open the package and saw it was an old movie she’d ordered after one of the jurors had mentioned it last week. Twelve Angry Men. What had particularly interested her about the film, when she’d looked it up online later, was its subject. It was about a juror who had, one by one, changed the minds of all his fellow jurors from a guilty to an innocent verdict. She would watch it this evening.
‘You hungry, Daffers? Let me get you some food. Your mummy has had a busy day. Want me to tell you about it? They made me foreperson. Impressed?’
As she walked across the hall, Meg continued chatting to the cat. ‘We heard the opening statement from the prosecution this morning. Then all afternoon we were sequestered in the jury room, because there were more legal arguments going on in court. I’m not really sure what legal arguments are, but I guess they’re important and hey, it meant I got to leave the court a little early. I’ll b
et you’re glad about that, aren’t—’
She stopped in mid-sentence as she entered the kitchen. Her flesh crawled. On the table was a new photograph, a typed note beside it.
She ran over to it and stared down.
The photograph, again taken with a telephoto lens, was of Laura and Cassie, taken from behind as they boarded a tiny, archaic train with just two carriages. At the top in small print was the word Aluisi followed by the date. Yesterday.
The note read:
Laura and Cassie having a great time on the Devil’s Nose railway! All the animals fed and watered. Smart thinking, changing the locks. Nice try. Well done on becoming foreperson. Keep our phone with you at all times. You are doing well. Just don’t try a silly stunt like changing your locks again, otherwise we’ll have to hurt Laura. Nothing life-threatening, but a nasty wound. One which in that heat could turn septic very quickly. Hospitals in that part of Ecuador are a bit scarce and a bit shit. I’m sure you understand me.
Moments later her new phone rang. She answered, warily, and heard the familiar male voice from before.
‘You are doing well, Meg, apart from that faffing around with the locks. That won’t stop us. Please don’t underestimate us. I really want your daughter to be safe, believe me, I’ve a little girl almost exactly her age and I know how I’d feel if I knew her life was in danger. So, let’s just behave like adults, shall we?’
‘You bastard,’ she replied, the words coming out before she could stop them.
‘Attitude is not going to help you, Meg. I’m sure you don’t like me at this moment, but when I return Laura safely home, you will thank me and realize I’m your best friend in the world.’
‘In your fucking dreams.’
‘Tut, tut, I hope you don’t use that language with your fellow jurors. What you need to understand is that we’re both on the same side here.’
‘Oh yes? Like one of us is on the side of the Devil and the other on the side of the Angels?’
‘You really need to calm down, Meg. Focus. Think just one thing. You want to see Laura again, don’t you?’
She said nothing.
After some moments, he went on. ‘Of course you do, she’s all the family you have left in the world. How would your life be without her? With her dead, like your husband and son? Think about it, Meg. Think what it would be like to go to the airport and sign a receipt for little Laura in a coffin. Go on, think really hard. What kind of wood would you choose for it? What lining inside? Brass handles?’
‘Stop it,’ she blurted, choked. ‘Please stop.’
‘Meg, you know what you have to do. We are very aware some of your fellow jurors could be a problem, but don’t worry about them – we’ll do what we can to take care of it.’
The line went dead.
48
Monday 13 May
At 7 p.m., in the Hoxton office, computer programmer Rio Zambrano, former Met detective Paul Constantinidi and Gready’s solicitor, Nick Fox, sat at the conference table with the large computer monitor on the wall in front of them displaying an image of Hugo Pink.
‘OK, guys, we got to first base,’ Fox said. ‘This gentleman was only too happy to take our offer to help him out of his financial hole. What he said in the jury room today has worked. So now we need to turn our focus on the other potential problem jurors – and witnesses. Let’s start with the jurors.’
He clicked a button on his mouse and the image changed to the silver-haired man in his sixties.
‘Mike Roberts,’ Fox said. ‘Retired former Detective Superintendent with Hampshire Police. All we really know about him is that he was forced to take early retirement. There’s a good chance he’s bitter about that, but we need more information on him – I’m working on it.’
He clicked the mouse again. A photograph appeared of a slender man with rimless glasses, his fair hair fashionably styled. Moments later, more images of him came onto the screen in sequence, and then a Wikipedia entry.
Toby DeWinter, 31, Actor. Married to Michael – né Davenport.
‘What do we know about him, Nick?’ Paul Constantinidi asked.
‘Gay, left wing, LGBT+ activist, very involved in Brighton Pride. Intellectual. Couldn’t call which way he would decide. But he might take the side of the underdog.’
Constantinidi nodded. ‘I’ll see if I can dig up anything on him.’
Both men grinned. Rio Zambrano, getting their gist, grinned also.
Next up was tight-faced Maisy Waller, with a silver cross on a chain around her neck.
‘Single,’ Constantinidi said. ‘Attends a High Anglican church. Lives with her elderly mother incapacitated with dementia. A good Christian, she’s a likely forgiveness merchant. “Not guilty” should be an easy win.’
They carried on through the list of jurors.
The one that all three agreed was another potential problem was the horsey woman, Gwendoline Smythson, who, from the sound relayed back to them via the bug implanted in Meg Magellan’s burner phone, had already decided Gready was guilty from the prosecution’s opening statement.
What they needed to be wary of, Nick Fox cautioned the two men, was getting a hung jury. They needed an out-and-out ‘not guilty’ verdict on each count. Anything less could result in a retrial. Which meant it was going to be down to Meg Magellan’s powers of persuasion, along with any influence they could bring on dissenting jurors.
She would have her work cut out. And Fox knew very well, from his reading of the disclosure documents, that some of the evidence against Gready was extremely damning. Therein lay the big difference between having a jury trial and not. Judges wanted facts; juries wanted to listen to stories. Winning or losing a case was in large part a question of who told the jury the best story, the prosecution counsel or the defence. They could not take the risk of this trial ending up in front of a judge, solo. Absolute care was needed. And he had found generally throughout his career that if you wanted someone silent, the next best thing to killing them was to frighten them – frighten them like they’d never known fear before.
When they had finished identifying the potential problem jurors, Nick Fox next looked at the witnesses who would be presenting evidence for the prosecution. Several would be a problem. There were a number of ‘expert witnesses’ – people with the credentials to be an acknowledged authority in their field. He had read all of their statements. And the facts supporting them.
And the witness they were about to hear was going to be Meg Magellan’s first big challenge.
49
Tuesday 14 May
The judge entered and everyone remained standing until he was seated. Then Stephen Cork stood, his collar and bands looking freshly laundered and crisply white against the black of his gown. He was a picture of elegance. The jury entered the court and took their seats.
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, yesterday I outlined the Crown case to you in broad terms. I will remind you of one key fact, which is that the defendant, Terence Gready, has strenuously denied knowing – or indeed ever in his life meeting – a gentleman by the name of Michael Starr. I will remind you also that Michael Starr was the driver of the vehicle and trailer transporting the fake Ferrari car in which was found six million pounds’ worth of the Class-A drug, cocaine. Please do remember this very important thing. Terence Gready has denied ever meeting Mr Starr.’
Cork engaged friendly eye contact with members of the jury, before continuing. ‘It is now my task to bring out the evidence for you to consider. Can we please call my first witness, Ray Parker.’
An usher brought in a man in his sixties, holding a thick folder.
Meg watched him with interest, thinking he looked uncomfortable in his suit and white shirt. His tie was too short, as were his trousers. He looked like a man who had dressed up for the occasion because he felt he ought to but would have been happier in jeans and a T-shirt.
‘Please say your name,’ asked the clerk.
He said loudly, but falteringly, ‘Raym
ond Parker.’
‘Will you take the oath or an affirmation?’
The man blushed, beads of perspiration popping on his brow. He looked like he was out of his comfort zone in every way. Instead of addressing the clerk, he looked up at the judge in answer. ‘Affirmation, please, My Lord – I mean, Your Honour.’
Jupp smiled. The clerk handed him a card.
In a gruff voice, Ray Parker read the words on it. ‘I solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that the evidence I shall give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’
Jupp turned to the prosecutor. ‘Please proceed with your witness.’
‘Thank you, Your Honour.’ In a calm, measured voice, Cork asked, ‘Can you give your name and occupation to the jury, please?’
‘Raymond Parker. I work for the Sussex Police Digital Forensics Unit.’
Meg felt for the man. He was clearly a back-room boffin. The sort of person who was not comfortable talking to strangers – especially not under this kind of close scrutiny.
Cork responded. ‘So, you have worked there for three years, and prior to that you were employed for eleven years in British Telecom’s Digital Forensics Department, liaising with police forces around England, with your speciality being what is termed cell-site analysis, is that right?’
‘It is, yes.’
‘And in addition are you also an expert in identifying the location of mobile phones through their connectivity with local Wi-Fi installations?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You are in fact an expert witness in such matters?’
‘I am, sir.’
‘Can you please explain what work you do in the Sussex Police Digital Forensics Unit?’
Parker half turned towards the jury. Meg studied him hard. He looked a decent man, she decided, if a bit nervy. She would have been, too, in that box, in front of everyone. He stumbled over his first few words before he got into his stride.
‘Well, I’m sure many people in this court have heard that boast, by the phone companies, that even the most basic handset today contains more computing power than NASA had in 1969 when they put a man on the moon. But really, it’s no idle boast. Not only are phones getting more powerful by the day, they contain more and more data about their owners.’